Shane Beamer addresses status of South Carolina's quarterback room
Going into the 2024 season South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer will be faced with the difficult task of replacing Spencer Rattler at the quarterback position. That’s particularly true given that there appears to be a fairly open competition for the job going into the offseason.
Recently, Beamer met with the media. There, he addressed the current status of the quarterback room.
“We’ve increased the competition,” Shane Beamer said. “When I look, and we haven’t been out, we haven’t practiced, but just looking at everything from an overhead view right now, hell, I feel like every position on our team, we are better than what we were when we played Clemson in the last game. When you just look at talent level, the depth, and the experience. You name it.”
The Gamecocks currently have five quarterbacks listed on their depth chart. That includes Luke Doty, who plays multiple positions, and Robby Ashford. A transfer from Auburn, Ashford is going to bring plenty of experience to the quarterback room. Davis Beville also came to South Carolina as a transfer. Those two transfers appear to be the keys to South Carolina’s quarterback competition.
“The quarterback position is the one that you could say okay, that’s not necessarily the case because of inexperience and just not a lot of depth. That was a major problem when we started in January. It’s gotten better here in the last couple of weeks, being able to bring in Davis and Robby both as well to increase the competition. I said that the last time I was in here, you’ve got all these quarterbacks or anybody that want to be guaranteed starting jobs and we weren’t willing to do that because two core values in this program are trust and competition, and if I tell somebody something that’s not true, I violated one of our core values and if I tell somebody that they’re guaranteed a starting job, then I violated the core values of competition,” Beamer said.
“So, that’s what that is. We got two guys in here that were promised the opportunity to come in and compete. They’re both guys that have started at the quarterback position in Power Five games. Two good young men who will make that room better.”
Dante Reno, a three-star recruit in the 2024 cycle according to the On3 Industry Rankings, also joined the team this offseason. Redshirt freshman LaNorris Sellers rounds out the quarterbacks currently on the roster. However, there is still time to add quarterbacks through the Transfer Portal and within the high school class.
“So, we’ve increased the competition. We’ve increased the depth. Every team has, in college football, a target number of guys that you want to have on scholarship at each position, and if you say Luke Doty is a receiver primarily right now, we started the month of January with two, LaNorris and Dante Reno. We knew we got to increase the depth in here because most teams want to have at least four, sometimes five, quarterbacks on scholarship,” Beamer said.
“So, those two guys make us better and [I’m] eager to get going with them more once we’re able to get off the road recruiting.”
Shane Beamer explains why he added James Coley to coaching staff
Recently, South Carolina added James Coley to the staff as a receivers coach. Ahead of introducing him, Shane Beamer broke down why he wanted Coley on staff.
“James Coley, when A&M made the decision to dismiss Coach [Jimbo] Fisher, I knew right away that James was somebody that I wanted to try and get into our program here at South Carolina in some way. I’m not the only head coach that felt that way because James had other choices out there. One that I know of in the SEC and one that I know of in the ACC that were pretty significant positions as well and it’s because of the kind of coach and the kind of person he is. I did know James from our time together at the University of Georgia,” Beamer said.
“I had coached against him when he was at the University of Miami and I was at Virginia Tech. He was the offensive coordinator at Miami and he was at Florida State with Coach Fisher. So, knew of him, had never met him until we went to Athens together, but we came into Athens together. Both hired at about the same time in 2016 for that season in Kirby [Smart‘s] first year in Athens. So, we came in together and saw firsthand what he’s about. He’s attractive to me from his experience and in so many different areas. He’s coached quarterbacks, he’s coached receivers, he’s coached tight ends, he’s coordinated offenses at the college level, he’s been a high school coach in South Florida, he’s coached in the NFL. I saw what he did with the receivers at the University of Georgia in our time there, as well.”